[Fury] No Room (Bon 2.3 , SeaTac 2.3)

Rich

Bon,

When it rains, it pours, right? After filling your infirmary, during the middle of a blood-storm, when you're still reeling from that vision you just had, there he is. The man who you refused to help after he pretty much killed your sister. SeaTac. Holding the spindly body of a young man who's been attacked, probably because of something he did. I mean, really, violence follows the guy like a bad smell follows a street rat.

And Joey was with him? The way he's standing by SeaTac, looking... up to him? Something there, you see it plain as day.

What do you do?

SeaTac,

You reach the infirmary, which looks full of patients, not a bed or cot to spare. This guy, he's just about gone. He doesn't look like he had much of anything, so there's no future in helping sods like this. But here you are, right? Bon looks at you. She looks so much like her. Well, of course, right? But still, it's like looking into those eyes, before, when the light drained out of them as she took your wounds into herself, as she healed you and it was too much for her to take.

Mox is there, too. Looking at you expectantly, afraid to reach out to take the new patient. Why? You've been nothing but good to him. He doesn't know that, though, does he?

What do you do?

WPTunes

I shiver. Can't help it. Normally I avoid Bon. Far as she's concerned, anyway. I leave things for Mox, yeah. Sometimes a little extra something to help with the work. Ain't forgot that I wouldn't be here without Bon's sister. Of course I ain't. I dream those eyes, is why I avoid them. Her hate's nothin. It's those eyes.

"This fella got robbed and stabbed. Seems Joey and me are the ones that didn't pass by on the other side of the road. Got any way to help?"

trevis

The lingering horror of the vision makes me shamefully slow to respond and suddenly he is there, standing before me. Am I still in the vision? I reflexively look for the wound I walked away from that day. The day my brain screamed that I could not, would not accept this responsibility, I would not risk putting the name of Nee’s killer on my skin next to hers. I feel her blood, and the fluid from her womb on my hands once again.

But this is not a vision. No the world coheres, my patients are not bloody tatters save for the body in his arms. I cannot intepret the hard, mad eyes, looking at me with something. The peculiar color of the eyes, the set of the mouth. I have not seen them since that day and yet my mind insists that I have.

I wipe again at the moisture on my cheeks. Time has stretched to a ridiculous length as all three of them stare at me. I look at the dying man. I look around again at the full infirmary.

“Our quarters.” I choke out, standing aside, turning my eyes away, and pointing the way. “My bed. Take him there. Mox, fetch some trauma kits.”

WPTunes

First words spoke between us in the long, wet years since I fetched up here. Never even knew her sister's name until she yelled it, then, of course I didn't, I'd just stumbled in, and even then, at the moment, through the pain, I thought she was talkin about my leg and I wondered left or right?

Those eyes. Those floodin eyes, turned away. I've got only the finger pointing, and it feels like one of Dog's crew somehow managing to issue a command to my ignorant sorry ass with one of them signs. And I follow commands.

I follow her finger. My world narrows to that single thing and situational awareness can paint itself red and dance in the rain. There could be an entire platoon under those beds and I wouldn't know.

I carry Tags' scrawny self the direction she points. Of course I do.

Rich

Bon and SeaTac,

Mox leads you, SeaTac, and Joey walks after them for a moment, but then he realizes you will be following, so he waits for you to go first. You're the healer, right? Only makes sense.

SeaTac, you head into Bon's little personal space. It's nothing as fancy as your VIP suite, that's for sure. The bed is small, the blankets are pushed away, like she doesn't sleep soundly and pushes them off in the night. Mox's bed is almost touching, so close in this space. You spot a few of the odds and ends you've given him. He made a little mobil out of a few bullets, they're strung from the ceiling.

Bon, Mox moves quickly ahead ans starts stripping the bed. He doesn't want this guy to bleed all over your bed, to leave the red in the one safe place you have. It's inevitable, thought, isn't it? The floor, the mattress itself, it will be stained.

What do you do?

trevis

I walk behind the man feeling strangely numb, my mind full of noise. I remember what I was thinking earlier, that I should, should, make some kind of amends.

We enter the small living area. Our living is not luxurious. Everything is plain, straightforward, functional.

I step past SeaTac, help Mox strip the last of the bedding, quickly, tossing it onto Mox’s bed, knocking some of the little trinkets Mox collects from their perches. I still feel as if I am moving through some thick viscous fluid rather than air.

“There.” I say, looking at Seatac again. I can’t help looking.

Putting the wounded man on the bed cannot be helped unless I put him on the floor, and he has a better chance if I do not have to kneel to reach his injuries.

“What befell this man?” My clipped tone might as well say ‘What did you do?’

WPTunes

Those eyes, back on me. The tone. I put the man on the bed, then snap to. Can't help it. "Came across him just as he was being robbed. Three hostiles. They ran when they saw me. Ma'am." Do I see blame? in those eyes? For this? I did what I was supposed to, right? Sometimes it's hard for a bullet to be anything but destruction, anything but taking and destroying, but... sometimes it's hard to be a bullet.

---

There's a reason you close the eyes of the dead, on both sides of a conflict, Pyle. When you can, at least. It's so they don't follow you, keep watching from the other side. The eyes are the window to the soul. You know, Shakespeare never wrote that. It's just true.

Don't even know whose voice that was. Not Sarge, for sure, and not One-Eye.

trevis

For a moment I am furious at Seatac for his deed. Not for helping, but for not allowing me to blame him for the wounded man’s plight. Perhaps he’s lying. He’s a killer why not a liar too?

But I cannot believe it. Why would he lie to me about it? Why would he care Enough to do so?

His deference makes it all the worse somehow, Makes me feel as if I am the monster between us. My eyes swing away, catching on Mox and Joey, standing there together. I don’t want Mox in here with him. I take the trauma kit from Mox’s hands.

“Take your friend outside and look after our other patients.” Mox is used to being at my elbow and helping for these things. But my voice is firm, even a little sharp.

I turn to the patient, giving them no time to protest. Mox know better than to argue with me during such a time. I strip the cloth and clothing from the wound, pop the trauma bag and begin with coagulant, stemming the bleeding. Then the bloodprod stim.

"Sit there, I wave a bloody hand at Mox’s bed, “and keep him from moving.” I say to Seatac. He might as well get the baseline seats and see up close what men like him have wrought.

Once he does, I’ll look at the damage here.

WPTunes

I sit where I'm told, ready to move to the man's shoulders or legs, keep him from thrashing. Not the first time I've been in this position, of course. "Ready to help however you need me, ma'am."

scott

Bon and SeaTac,
SeaTac sits on Mox's bed, too many people in this cramped space and has to lean back into the pile of bedding and clothes tossed onto the thin mattress. It's unreasonably comfortable, actually, SeaTac.

Bon strips the dressing from Tag's wounds and deep crimson blood seeps through the slit-like cuts. She wipes the blood away once... twice. Blood runs down Tag's side and pools at his back, dripping through the cot to the floor below. Bon shifts to reach a roll of clean bandage and her knee painfully crunches down on one of Mox's little baubles fallen to the floor.

"You ok in there?" calls Shy from the other room, concern in her voice as she of course has her own hands full with the others.

Bon, you can save him... if you want to save him. If you have it in you. Someone in the other room coughs and wretches and you hear Shy hurrying to help.

SeaTac offers to help. Bon, do you let him?

WPTunes

I hear the cough, hear Shigusa's voice... "Listen, Bon, ma'am. I don't know this guy from nothing, but I've field-dressed a wound or forty in my time." I look down at the little thing she just crunched with her knee... a plastic figure of a fat man in a robe sitting with his legs crossed, smoking a cigarette. I'd thought Mox would be amused. Glad to see it was still around. "Leave the sutures and the needle, and tend to those others, wherever they came from."

trevis

And now he wants to do my job.

“Bon will do for me.” I snip. “And I have no doubt of your expierence, considering, but I am certain he would wish to enjoy a life without constant pain.”

My hand slips again. My calm is not what it should be.

“Oh, very well! Just do as I say. Hold this open and sponge it clear with your other hand.” I put the absobant cloth on the patient’s chest in Seatac’s reach. “There is a fragment in the center cut.”

I’m spending one stock to stabilize him. With Seatac’s help.

WPTunes

Help Bon

(Rolled: 2d6-2. Rolls: 3, 5. Total: 6)

trevis

(Rolled: 2d6+1. Rolls: 6, 3. Total: 10)

trevis

He responds well to treatment, I recover the stock spent. His course of recovery teaches me something about my craft. +1 xp

Rich

Bon and SeaTac,

Tags doesn't bleed out, even though your help wasn't needed, SeaTac. Bon practically moves you out of the way at one point. Shy and Mox, with some help from Ghost, have the rest of the patients stable. There will still be hours of tending to them before you can sleep, but you've got three assistants, you can work in shifts, Bon. Oh, and SeaTac, "the bullet".

SeaTac, you realize as Bon works that your field dressing is primitive, that what she does, which is completely unlike what Nee did, is incredibly skilled. What you can do with a gun, she can undo with her craft. It really is a craft, mind you. Think of all the people you've sent on, who she might have saved.

Joey stands just outside, chatting with Mox while he works but keeping within sight of you. You protege. The next member of the unit. When you train him to use a knife, he won't leave folks like Tags around. They'd be dead.

What do you do?

trevis

Somewhere along the way the clarity of working, of solving the problem distracts me from my anger. At whom? In a sudden flash of understanding I’m able to conserve a lot of the coagulant and sealant and do a much less obvious repair that should hold very well indeed. More than that he only uses a quarter of the blood production stimulant.

I’m so absorbed in the particular discovery that it takes me a moment to remember that SeaTac is there. I remember shooing him aside, though I was too deep into working at that point for it to be very emotional, rather it was the simple clearing of an obstruction.

I look up at SeaTac, a few moments of clear vision as I clean my hands before I feel my emotions arise again, albeit much less sharply than before. My eyes focus on his neck, and out of reflex I reach and turn his chin slightly right and up so I can see it, the fresh graze there. A bullet, and today.

“That wants disinfectant.” I fetch it from the kit. Unless he prevents it I will stand in front of him and clean the graze. Some small acknowlegement of his charity to this man.I glance outside seeing Joey and with my current clarity I pay attention to my wondering. “Why is Joey with you?” My voice is again calm with only threads of tension through it.

WPTunes

I absolutely let Bon clean the small wound. I have a feeling she ain't gonna like what I'm about to say, but it's what has to be said. "I'm training the boy." Simple, direct. I wait for the reaction.

trevis

My tension rises a little.

My eyes shift from the disinfectant salve that I am carefully spreading over the minor wound. I can feel the warmth of the skin and the gentle throb of the steady pulse.

They shift to meet those eyes that seem cool and calm, even stoic, but for the ferocity behind them, however distant. They are the eyes of a dangerous and most predatory creature indeed. And for all my antipathy I recognize them as vibrant…even beautiful. It only serves to agitate my humor further.

“Folishness. Your jest is misplaced, sir. If you wish to try your hand at such, Valentine can provide you a better venue than my poor infirmary.” Yes, the edge has crept, theiflike, back into my tone.

I’ve known Joey since he was but four or five. I’ve nursed him throgh two terrible fevers while his mother’s eyes begged me to save him. He is as nearly mine as Mox and Shigusa. This man does not understand that the Arrows would never permit such as he suggests. They take care of their own.

“He has taken to following you about, I gather. He is no doubt curious, as boys often are. Well, you have my apologies, we shall dissuade him from troubling you further.”

A ridiculous notion. Yet I watch those mad eyes carefully.

reading SeaTac

trevis

(Rolled: 2d6+2. Rolls: 4, 3. Total: 9)

WPTunes

I see Bon searching my eyes for some... sign. Like watching the hills for the flash of a rival sniper's scope. I don't want to hide anything from her, got no reason to, especially when it comes to Joey.

But Bon... she's a creature like no one else. Eyes accusing me of violence, and rightly. A bullet's a bullet.

Never left her bleeding, though, did I?

WPTunes

SeaTac Helping Bon's Read

(Rolled: 2d6-2. Rolls: 5, 3. Total: 6)

Rich

"I'm not..." Joey blurts out suddenly, moving to the edge of your "dorrway", Bon. "I'm not following him around, Miss Bon. I'm his cadet! He's teaching me stuff, how to live right! Like...." Joey blinks, nervously trying to call up something from the day's events. "Like how to get work, and be smart. And using a sharp knife to kill. My knife's not fit for it, so I need to fix it up right. And just you wait, we're gonna hunt down the guys who knifed this guy, and I'll make sure they don't hurt anybody else." He gives you a solid look, Bon, then looks over at you, SeaTac, and nods.

trevis

I go still, staring at Joey. His words creep into me, the malevlolent invisible brothers to Vignette’s creature, and I stand helpless. I start shaking my head slowly to deny the them entrance. Sound seems diminished, distant and it is far too hot.

“No.” The first is soft, a plea.

I turn again to him, voice getting harder, shaking. “No… No. It is false, a lie. Deny this madness at once. Tell him…” I point at Joey, my pitch is rising, I’m closing on Seatac, trembling with fury, getting in his face. “Tell him now that this is but a poor jest. That you are not teaching him, not teaching one of my children to be a… a… flooding demon of death.” I spit that through gritted teeth.

Whether I whisper or scream I know not. My vision is tunneled down to those terrible, beautiful eyes.

How can I get you to give up training Joey?

WPTunes

This... this finally breaks the reserve and respect I've been shepherding. For the moment, I forget Mox, and Nee... and the debt that I owe. "Woman, I kill as needed, or as ordered, to keep the hold, the world dry. Today, Joey'n me saved two from the flood that's just the scum of day-to-day life. Not long ago, I took out a bunch of Salmon's guys, gunnin' for SafeCo. And yeah, you can say 'Violence begets violence,' I heard it before. But you know what? Look outside. The world's raining blood. And I'm an umbrella. Joey will be, too."

I take a breath after that speech. "And besides, Joey ain't yours. None of 'em are. Joey's Laika's and she gave her blessing. I committed to training the boy, and I can't see how you're like to change that."

Don't see any way you could convince me to stop, now that I've started.

trevis

The man is threat incarnate. Towering and strong where I am diminutive. His voice and aspect become harsh. My own fury holds me fast in the face of it, though the wiser part of me wishes to quail and flinch away from so formidable a foe.

The worst of it is that he is not wrong.

The quieter words after strike as if a physical blow. Then the information, that Laika and no doubt Dog, August and the rest of the Arrows agreed to this travesty. The bitter mixture of betrayal and impotence is on my tongue.

We stand tense in that silence a moment. His challenge hanging. Then I suddenly grab and fling whatever is closest at his head and use the opportunity it provides to draw and level my small pistol at him.

WPTunes

I jerk out of the way of the book that Bon tosses at my head, then register the gun. Now that weapons are drawn (well, weapon), this gets harder. I snap out, "Joey, get out, now." Hopin' he's still in "obeying commands" mode.

Only way to take a fortified position, sometimes, is to risk crossing open ground, where you're vulnerable. I reach up, slow, to unbutton my coat, keeping eyes on Bon the whole time. The coins that make up the armor don't jingle... I spent a lot of time hunting down rubber to go between em, but there's a definite metallic *thunk* when I shrug it off and the whole thing hits the floor. I keep my hands out to the side.

"You been judging me for your sister's decision for eleven years, medico. How many people do you stitch up, day-to-day, that got in fights 'cause they were drunk or or greedy or just plain stupid? You want that for Joey? He can't be an Arrow. You think I don't do good for SafeCo? Can't give the boy the skills he needs to survive, to keep his head above water in the red flood that's the world? Even to save a few rotters that might be worth saving? Then just go ahead and shoot, if you got the aim and the heart to do it. I lost everything that matters already, just trying to find an excuse to live or die."

My eye catches on the mobile Mox made from the bullet casings. Wouldn't be a bad thing if her aim was good, except for failing Joey. Kid has potential.

trevis

The weapon trembles with my arm.

The armor drops to the floor. Then his words. ’Tis the look in the eyes though that does it. That bleak look. A speaking look. A look I know well from the inside.

What is this madness? I have never drawn a weapon on another in this way. I have killed, of course, in self-defense. I have fired a weapon under threat, but this…

This is wrong.

I see it now. I have selfishly resisted giving my anger its rightful target, instead blaming this man… walking away from him when he was hurt, avoiding him so that I had but a caricature of an undeserving killer to blame for Nee. And now to take the life my sister gave hers to save?

He is right. Right about Joey. Right about all of it.

I lower the gun. I breathe. I survey the horrified expressions of my… of Nee’s children. And Joey. I breath again. I let the clip fall and eject the chamber and turn half away.

“Joey matters.” I choke. By the bloody rain, when did I start crying? I suppose lack of control should not surprise me at this point. Shame has engulfed me like a blood tide. I keep my head bowed. I can’t look up into those eyes again. “D..don’t lose him.”

WPTunes

I'm not an idiot. I can see what these last few minutes have cost her.

"Way I was brought up, way I was trained, they were one and the same." That may seem out of nowhere, but I think I'm going somewhere. "And like with everyone, I guess, there were parts of it that were just history and knee-jerk clinging on, and parts of it that were in the mix to keep the people at the top, at the top. And there were parts that were just wrong, for no particular reason." I look over to see Joey and Mox still peeking out from around the door.

"But there were parts that were right, too. I've had eleven years to sort some things out, so I can make stupid mistakes that are purely original, not all inherited, you know? Never intended to start training a cadet until it happened, really, but doesn't mean I didn't think on it."

I look to see if the medico's even registering. Seems I've made more speeches in the last ten minutes than in the last year. Don't want to waste this one. "Here's the thing. From the time I was young, I was taught to be a bullet, and that's what I still am, mostly. That's no way to live, and I intend to give Joey what he needs to live, and to live better than I have. I'm gonna need help with that, I figure."

trevis

I listen, though I do not look at him. My eyes are hot and the tears have not yet stopped.

His description is surprisingly familiar, differing only slightly from my own experience. He was taught to be a bullet and I a scalpel.

I am all sniffs and odd pauses as I answer. “He has… his mother, and all… of the Arrows.”

I pause a long moment.

“But, if my help is wanted,” I wipe hard at my eyes, “then ’tis yours.”

Rich

Bon and SeaTac,

Mox gently picks his way past you, SeaTac, stepping closer to you, Bon. His eyes are full of worry, he has no words to offer. He puts a hand on your arm, Bon.

What do you do?

WPTunes

I watch Mox make his way through the room. "World's a dark red place, ma'am... Bon. Reckon we don't need to say much more on the subject of my cadet, but I'm pretty sure you'll call me out if it seems fitting." As the words come out, something hits me. "Course, for you to do that, we can't keep avoiding each other."

trevis

How I must look. Seeing Mox is the incintive to compose myself again. How frightening it must be to see me so uncontrolled. I smile, taking a final wipe at my cheeks. I hug Mox to me. It will be only a short time, indeed, before he is as tall as I.

“No, indeed.” I respond to Seatac. I loose my embraceon my nephew, then I turn to the man again, finally meeting his eyes, my hand still on Mox’s back. “We must put that in the past. I cannot risk you trusting your health or his to the care of someone else. And Joey is, in a sense, family. It… it would ease my mind greatly if I better knew his mentor.”

WPTunes

Hold out a hand? Pat a shoulder? Nothing seems right, here. Finally, I just say, "Clear water, then. Don't expect you to love everything I do, but... we got something in common that needs to keep dry. It's a start."

First real breath I've taken since I dragged Tags in here, and I take my time with it. "Mind me asking how you came to have so many beds full? Is this the usual?"

trevis

I nod. I am grateful for the effort to move on, it is a chance to let the raw nerve rest, and perhaps begin to heal. I look out toward the infirmary.

"No, we are, in general, less crowded. We accompanied the expedition to the harbor to relocate the Harbormaster and his people to Safeco." I glance at Seatac. He is a perceptive fellow, not that the loathing I have for H.M. is subtle, particularly after what I learned today. "The poor wretches here are what becomes of those who are no longer useful to him. I understand he would have left them behind and thus they would have died today if we had not fetched them back."

WPTunes

"Who is 'we'? Not just you and Mox and Shy, I'm guessing. This thing, was it just Valentine's deal, or what? Why would that pustulant rotter, I mean, Harbormaster, have you along for the ride?"

trevis

I can't help but smile at Seatac's epithet for H.M. "Mox and I. Valentine arranged to hire Gate's followers to carry things, and people too. I do not think H.M. intended it. Hope, who I hear he has now given to Admiral, came to see me and asked me to go, specifically to save these people he was leaving behind. He did not challenge my going however, which I can only put down to Valentine, but it is doubtful he will pay me for their care either, if I can even save them."

I briefly describe what I have discovered with how H.M. enslaves his people with this narcotic and that it may be connected to red-infection.

"And now I shall be looking to gathering some beds to make a longer term ward."

Rich

Bon and SeaTac,

I assume SeaTac helps with whatever you ask him to do, Bon. Joey's eager to help Mox, and Mox does put him to work taking out waste, helping to clean up.

Where do you expect you can get some beds, Bon? HM just took up all the extra space and beds around, and Safeco is full up with the storm. Do you have a contact in the scavs or plan on putting a jingle out there for someone to find them for you?

trevis

I'm not looking for something so exotic as a finished bed. Getting such a thing would be much more expensive. No I'm looking for the materials to make two frames, pipe, perhaps, metal or plastic or wood. And thin but strong rope, woven out of fiber or sometimes flexible plastic.

Being the medic means I know people everywhere, and I've helped several of them. My contact among the scavs, Groovy, is probably my best source for finding what I need.

WPTunes

Since I haven't been much more than a distraction to caring for these people, I suppose it's time for me to excuse myself. I turn to Bon, interrupting her woolgathering. "I'll be taking my leave. I'll keep an eye out for beds or what you might make beds out of. And I think Joey might still be some help here, so I'll leave him with you, for now."

I walk over to my cadet. "You help out Bon however she needs, and come find me in the morning. We'll make a regular schedule soon, and I'll see what I can do about bunk space. If it's still raining too hard for you to make it back to the Arrows later, I'll put you up for the night."

trevis

I watch him talk to Joey for a moment before following him. I've positioned myself in his path when he turns towards the door. After a moment I hold out a hand, look him steadily in the eye.

"Until we meet again, then. I would be honored if you would join us for a meal soon... when it is convenient."

WPTunes

I nod, thoughtful, as I give the medico's hand a firm grip. "I'd like that, when it's a little less hectic, maybe?" I'd say something was accomplished here today. We'll see what the future brings to it.

Rich

--End Scene--